The present invention relates generally to the field of content and interactive offer delivery systems, and more particularly to a technique that allows for the use for multiple technologies in delivering content and offers, and for receiving feedback in response to offers.
The field of content delivery coupled with transactional offer delivery has evolved extremely rapidly in recent years. For example, advertisements transmitted via broadcast media have traditionally called for interacting parties to telephone or write to offer providers, or to visit a store, to accept offers, place orders, advance inquiries, and so forth. More recently, broadcast and other providers have offered content along with transactional offers to which target audiences could respond via the same medium used to transmit and receive the offer. That is, satellite and cable providers, for example, may display selected content along with offers for various products and services, which may be accepted and processed by a user selecting options on a handheld remote control or other interface device.
Such technologies make for highly effective marketing and processing of transactions. However, they can be limited to those receivers equipped to respond via the selected technology. Such technologies may include so-called set-top boxes, cable boxes, special receivers, special remote control devices, and so forth. For consumers who do not have such specialized devices, the acceptance of the offers, collection of additional information, and so forth may be severely curtailed, and the user may be required to resort to conventional call-in, with providers required to operate or to contract with call centers for receiving calls and processing orders.
Similarly, with the advent of time-shifted playback, the display and acceptance of offers with time-shifted content may be such that the entire offer and acceptance process becomes moot. That is, by the time content is played, in many cases, the period for acceptance of the offer may have expired, time-sensitive offers may no longer be relevant (e.g., an offer of scheduled pay-per-view content), or the offer may not be appropriate for the time slot in which the content is viewed.
There is a need, therefore, for improved techniques allowing for the distribution and processing of transactions initiated by the delivery and/or playback of content.